Breakfast Series - The Rare Pear

http://therarepear.com.au/

I've recently struggled to get some inspiration for Sunday morning breakfast.  Every time I look down my list of breakfast spots to try, the list gets shorter and shorter.  I'm not yet ready to start revisiting all of my favourite breakfast spots or even checking out some of my favourite dinner spots, that have awesome breakfasts.  

During the week, one of my FoodMeUpScotty followers had posted some great looking photos on Facebook that started a lively debate about which breakfast spot is better in Holland Park.  Using that, I decided that I'd get out of the city and travel to find out which of the Holland Park cafes was best and after a flip of a coin, commenced our journey to The Rare Pear.

Not getting out of the CBD for breakfast very often, it was no surprise that I'd never heard of The Rare Pear before.  But, as is usually the case, there was a serendipitous moment when I realised that the Holland Park cafe had recently made the UrbanList '50 Meals You Should Have Eaten if You Live in Brisbane | Reader's Choice' (see link here).  

If you will pardon the pun, The Rare Pear is from a pair of cafes, one in Holland Park and the other in the Samford Valley.  The Holland Park Rare Pear has head chef Mathew Bird in control of the kitchen and he's designed a breakfast menu that is quite creative with a range of contemporary and traditional breaky options that looked quite appealing.  Having one of his dishes included in the UrbanList is a big deal and showcases that the menu created is a beauty.

Festival Series - The Teneriffe Festival

http://www.teneriffefestival.org/

I still remember my first time fondly.  We were blissfully unaware that the inaugural Teneriffe Festival was underway and out for a morning walk through Newstead and Teneriffe.  It was pretty random to be honest, we just picked a direction and head towards Teneriffe, thinking a long walk along the river would be a great idea.

As we rounded the corner of Commercial Road, we could see some commotion a little further up the road and as we got closer, we could see that the street was closed off and there seemed to be some sort of street party (big understatement).  That first year of the Festival was a random occurrence, but we've made our way to the Teneriffe Festival each year since.

In the five years that the festival has been running, we've watched it slowly consume more and more of  the trendy inner city suburb and this year was it's biggest yet.  I couldn't believe how vibrant and incredible Teneriffe becomes during the festival, with live music, fashion shows, laneway parties and all-so-much-food.

127 Bar and Bistro - another CBD restaurant that just made my favourites list

http://www.bar127.com.au/

I've mentioned many times in my blog that I'm a 'city-slicker', which is a term I don't really like but describes me pretty well.  I live and work in the CBD and love every minute of it.  Working in the CBD with offices in a couple of different locations means that I often walk from one end of the city to the other for meetings.  This has two impacts, it helps keep me fit and slim :) and it means that I often walk the city streets and get to see the subtle and not so subtle changes that happen in Brisbane every day.  My most common route takes me up Charlotte Street, which leads me to the point of this blog.

I'd been watching with interest over the last few years as a new apartment block called the Midtown slowly take shape.  I always pay attention to new apartments, you never know when a beautiful new home becomes available, but also because most buildings going up nowadays have some sort of cafe or restaurant attached.  I walked by 127 Charlotte Street hundreds of times watching and waiting, waiting and watching before something started to take shape.  The space in 127 Charlotte didn't look too big, so I naturally thought that it would be a small cafe, servicing the apartments above.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I received an email inviting me along to the opening of an exciting new bistro in the city and was delighted to see that it was the little spot in Charlotte Street, now called 127 Bar and Bistro.  This post is not about the opening part for 127 Bar and Bistro, although I went along with over a hundred guests to welcome in the opening of Brisbane's latest inner city dining spot and had much fun and frivolity.  MC Sofie Formica did a wonderful job keeping us all entertained, while head chef Travis Crane impressed the crowd with an experimental dessert buffet.  It was a sight to behold and I will sneak in a couple of photos from the party at the end.

Casual Dining - Colle Rosso

http://www.collerosso.com.au/

It had been a little while since I'd fallen into a Sunday night rhythm of hitting an Italian restaurant for either pizza or pasta, but after our visit the weekend before to Sorellina for pizza (see post here), we felt inspired.  I've checked out most of the Italian restaurants in and around the Brisbane CBD, but not all of them, and after a quick look around, decided that Red Hill favourite, Colle Rosso was long overdue for a visit.

Colle Rosso has been around for a couple of years now and it's slowly been building a loyal fan base of locals.  Located on Musgrave Road, Colle Rosso is only a few minutes out of the CBD and actually much more convenient than you'd expect.  It was a freezing cold Sunday night when we decided to visit, so it was definitely a trip in the car, but it's close enough to the CBD that we'd be comfortable walking in warmer weather.

We'd parked the car just across the street from the restaurant and made our way across busy Musgrave Road and by the time we'd hit the front door, were eternally grateful to be out of the freezing (well, cold for Brisbane) wind and into the warm and inviting dining room.  It was a pretty quiet night, with only one table occupied when we arrived, and were shown to our table, which was right at the front of the restaurant.  We had a chuckle about our location, which was strategically great for the restaurant (showing that diners were in the restaurant), but being next to the massive plate glass windows, it was a little cold!

The dining room at Colle Rosso is quite an inviting space, with lots of Italian memorabilia over the walls including an homage to the world game - a glass enclosed number 10 guernsey from a much loved football side (soccer).  We didn't have to wait for menus to be delivered, they were already at the table and we set about deciding on what to have for dinner.  My intention had been for us to have a couple of pizzas again but SC was soon in a quandary, with some sensational looking pasta options.  In the end, we ended up mixing it up with pizza and pasta.